sustainability Article The Effects of Mobile Advertising Alerts and Perceived Value on Continuance Intention for Branded Mobile Apps Miluska Murillo-Zegarra, Carla Ruiz-Mafe and Silvia Sanz-Blas * Department of Marketing, University of Valencia, 46022 Valencia, Spain; [email protected] (M.M.-Z.); [email protected] (C.R.-M.) * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +34-96-382-83-12 Received: 15 July 2020; Accepted: 17 August 2020; Published: 20 August 2020 Abstract: This paper examines consumers’ behaviours towards mobile advertising alerts offered by branded mobile apps in the fashion industry. While consumer-driven factors have attracted much attention, little research has examined the impact of data-driven mobile advertising alerts on consumer continuance intention for branded mobile apps. This paper analyses the combined influence of consumer beliefs, data-driven mobile advertising alerts, and perceived value on mobile advertising acceptance, intention to repurchase, and recommendation behaviour towards branded mobile apps on social media. In total, 340 valid responses from Spanish customers of an online fashion outlet, all social media users, who make their purchases from the company exclusively through its branded mobile application, were analysed to test the hypotheses, using structural equation modelling. The results showed that mobile advertising acceptance, intention to repurchase, and recommendation behaviour are driven by the perceived value of the branded mobile app. Perceived value is determined by the usefulness of the branded mobile app, attitudes towards mobile advertising alerts, and irritation. Mobile advertising content (informativeness and credibility) improves attitudes towards mobile advertising alerts. Ease of use increases perceived usefulness, while perceived control decreases irritation. Managerial implications are provided. Keywords: social media; mobile services; perceived value; repurchase intention; word of mouth; permission marketing 1. Introduction In the world of big data, organisations are increasingly turning to mobile devices and social media as new information sources that continuously monitor a wide range of processes and situations. The business landscape has changed at a fast pace with the rapid acceptance of social media and advances in mobile technologies [1,2]. Consumers are now more reliant than ever on digital devices, and online shopping trends point to m-commerce as the wave of the future. Due to the prevalence of mobile devices and social media, billions of people are contributing to the existing volume of big data. According to [3], the number of connected Internet devices will reach 13.7 billion in 2024, and social media and mobile apps are changing the consumer’s shopping habits. Globally, smartphones are used more often than desktops and tablets to make purchases. Some 78% of Internet users already use their mobile phones to make purchases, a trend that will continue to increase as digital natives mature as consumers. Sales made on mobile phones are expected to reach 3.56 billion euros worldwide in 2021 [3]. Branded mobile apps have been defined as software downloadable to a mobile device, which prominently displays a brand identity, often the name of the app and a brand logo, or icon, Sustainability 2020, 12, 6753; doi:10.3390/su12176753 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2020, 12, 6753 2 of 20 throughout the user experience [4]. Branded mobile apps—the latest brand communication channel— create brand experiences and facilitate consumer-brand engagement [5,6]. Big data produced by mobile apps and social media contains valuable information about customers and markets and has been viewed as a productive resource. The meta-analysis carried out by [7] showed that mobile marketing research is in its growth phase, and an increasing number of studies will be published in the coming years. However, there are still important gaps in the study of consumer behaviour with mobile apps; few studies have been carried out specifically into the perceived value of branded mobile apps. Exceptions are the recent works of [6,8–11]. Social media and mobile devices offer unprecedented opportunities for clothing enterprises. The large global fashion clothing brands all attach great importance to obtaining valuable information from digital technologies [12]. In Spain, fashion products are the second most commonly sold category through smartphones (48%), after leisure products [3]. Indeed, fashion has become one of the fastest growing mobile phone-based sales sectors. However, few mobile commerce studies have examined the fashion industry (the exceptions being [13] and [14]). From the business management viewpoint, further analysis would help fashion companies to better understand the factors that increase the perceived value of branded mobile apps; this, in turn, would help them adapt their mobile communications to ensure that their customers obtain better value and, as a consequence, purchase and make recommendations through social media. Perceived value is crucial to continuance intention for a service, and has become a very important source of competitive advantage, being one of the main determinants of purchase intention [15,16]. The importance of mobile advertising for marketers makes it a key task to gain insight into the drivers of mobile advertising effectiveness. Mobile advertising allows consumers to access advertising messages at their convenience. When consumers receive mobile advertising messages they can read them, delete them, or keep them until they decide what to do with them. Thus, factors underlying mobile advertising acceptance can play a key role in the success of mobile advertising. Prior studies [17,18] have emphasised that attitudes to mobile advertising is an important construct for mobile marketing research due to its effects on perceived value which, in turn, impacts on consumer loyalty. Whereas previous research on attitudes towards mobile advertising has focused on innovation-based drivers [19], and consumer beliefs such as trust [20], little attention has been paid to the influence of data-driven message factors on attitudes towards and acceptance of mobile advertising. While m-commerce provides a convenient way to shop, when personal information and preferences are used in direct appeals to consumers, they fear that their information may be shared with other parties without their permission [21]. Mobile app users, therefore, make trade-off decisions to determine if the risk of breach of privacy (lack of perceived control) is worth the benefits of having a faster, more streamlined, personalised experience. As for mobile advertising alerts, the irritation caused by advertising can be alleviated when the operators seek prior permission. The impact of irritation and perceived control on consumers’ perceptions of the value of mobile apps needs further investigation. Given these research gaps, the aim of the present study is to explore the influence of mobile advertising alerts and perceived value on consumers’ behavioural intentions towards branded mobile fashion apps. This study differs from previous works focused only on consumer-driven factors, in that it combines the impact of the content (informativeness, credibility, and personalisation) of mobile advertising alerts, permission marketing variables (irritation and perceived control) and perceived value, and closely examines customer attitudes and behaviours. In particular, the goals of this study are: (i) to identify the impact of data-driven mobile advertising alert content (informativeness, personalisation and credibility) on attitude; (ii) to evaluate the effects of attitude towards mobile advertising alerts, permission marketing, and consumer beliefs on the perceived value of branded mobile apps (iii) to verify the impact of perceived value on consumers’ continuance intentions towards branded mobile apps (mobile advertising acceptance, repurchase intentions, and word of mouth on social media). The work is divided into four parts. The first provides a literature review on perceived value, mobile advertising alerts, and consumer continuance intention for branded mobile apps, and the Sustainability 2020, 12, 6753 3 of 20 proposed hypotheses. Then, the methodology and the empirical analyses are presented; these are based on a sample of 340 Spanish customers of an online fashion outlet, all social media users, who make their purchases from the company exclusively through its branded mobile application. Thereafter, the findings are presented. In the final section, conclusions and implications are provided, and some limitations and opportunities for further research are outlined. 2. Conceptual Background 2.1. Consumer Beliefs, Perceived Value and Continuance Intention This section reviews previous studies that examined the impact of consumer beliefs and attitude towards mobile advertising on perceived value and the effects of perceived value on continuance intentions (repurchase intention, word of mouth, and acceptance of mobile advertising alerts). Perceived value and continuance intention [22] established the basis for the conceptualisation of perceived value, defining it as the overall assessment the consumer makes of the utility of a product, based on perceptions of what one receives from the product and what one gives to obtain it. Based on previous research, the mobile-based purchasing process can be analysed in terms of perceived value, where users voluntarily participate in mobile commerce, taking into